Pinchas Zukerman is joining
the RPO for a ‘Summer Music Festival’ at Cadogan Hall, involving chamber as
well as orchestral music, the former with musicians from the Royal College of
Music. This was the opening concert, in which we were treated to Zukerman as
violinist as well as conductor. There was a great deal to enjoy, and we were
treated to a previously unadvertised bonus, a performance of Exsultate, jubilate, with Zukerman’s
daughter, Arianna.

Bach came first: the rarest
of rare treats in the insanity of modern symphonic programming. Would that one
could believe this to be a harbinger; alas, it seems more likely to be a late,
if not quite last, hurrah from a generation of musicians who understood and
experienced the necessity of performing a repertoire spanning as many centuries
as possible. Zukerman’s recordings of the Bach violin concertos with Daniel
Barenboim and the English Chamber Orchestra remain a choice recommendation, as
do those of David Oistrakh with the RPO. Here, in a sense, then, we gained the
best of both worlds, and this was for the most part a delightfully assured,
musical performance, which sought to make no especial ‘points’ and was all the
better for it. The tempo taken for the first movement had a sense of ‘rightness’
to it, setting up a performance whose variegated articulation was not the least
of its virtues. Zukerman’s intonation was perfect throughout. (It is surprising
how many violinists’ intonation is not.) Varied flourishes of vibrato were
rightly the icing on the cake. And throughout, crucially, the continuo line
(Clare Williams on harpsichord, Tim Gill leading the cellos) provided the
foundation upon which Bach’s miraculous score was re-created. The slow movement
was a little more problematical: taken at a very brisk pace and, more to the
point, at times disconcertingly brusque. Matters improved as time went on, but
tutti passages retained more than a little of that character. Zukerman could
occasionally be a little fierce too, though there were some truly exquisite
moments: diminuendi, in particular, and some especially rich tone in the lower
registers of the instrument. Some might have found the finale a little on the
sturdy side, but Zukerman’s tempo permitted musical values to eclipse the
merely or mostly flash. Again, that perfectly centred tone of his was something
truly to savour – and again, the RPO played with unflashy excellence.

A good number more strings
joined the orchestra for Verklärte Nacht.
This proved to be quite an unusual performance. In many, though not quite all,
it paid off, but Zukerman certainly proved himself no slave to received
tradition. The veiled opening, dark, even ominuous, seemed all the more so for
being taken at an unusually slow tempo. It actually made the music sound closer
to Mahler, recalling the first movement of the Second Symphony and even looking
forward to the Sixth, despite the different keys involved. The opening, at
least, was quite different in its lack of Brahmsian flexibility, though that
would come later, Zukerman showing himself willing both to linger and to press
on. Indeed, different sections of the work exhibited clearly differentiated
character, the programme coming across more strongly than often. Despite one
passage in which conductor and orchestra seemed to lose their way – I am not quite
sure what happened – climaxes and turning-points were handled with musical and
dramatic understanding. Graver passages seemed especially to benefit from
Zukerman’s approach; some others might have benefited from more in the way of
late Romantic abandon, sounding a little studied by comparison with other
performances. I was not entirely convinced by the considerable slowing towards
the end, suggesting almost an formal arch rather than a journey toward transfiguration,
but the final bars themselves somewhat redressed the balance.

Arianna Zukerman showed
herself a winningly forthright soloist: not flawless, but with a nicely
operatic spirit. In the first movement of Mozart’s motet, the lower range
showed a degree of strain, and the cadenza’s intonation was unfortunate. But
her phrasing was musical, and was clearly conceived of in tandem with Zukerman’s
exquisite direction of the orchestra, woodwind in particular. Even when, once
again, as in the third movement, the soloist’s intonation wandered, the RPO
sounded gorgeous. The final ‘Alleluia’ was taken with evident relish; it was
difficult not to smile, in Haydnesque fashion, at the prospect of the Divinity.

Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony received a lovely
performance with which to finish. The first movement opened with real attack, a
true sense of life. Bright and bushy-tailed, Mendelssohn’s score benefited once
again from splendidly variegated playing. The vivace in Allegro vivace
was properly heeded. There was a delightful, subtle slowing for the advent of
the second group, but the exposition repeat was not taken and was missed (at
least by me!) The development section was admirably clear with an excellent
sense of direction, the recapitulation offering a real sense of arrival – and also
of difference, bubbling woodwind nicely to the fore. What one might call the ‘light
inexorability’ of tread to the second movement was perfectly captured. It was
interesting to note that often Zukerman felt no need to conduct at all,
suggestive of well-directed rehearsal. The minuet received a loving, old world
performance. Too relaxed? Perhaps just a little, at times, though certainly not
by much. Its trio continued in similar vein, boasting especially fine Harmoniemusik, which inevitably had one
think of Mozart’s serenades. Any slight doubts had evaporated by the return of
the minuet. The finale wanted nothing in vigour, urgency, or, where required,
lightness of touch. A fine sense of chiaroscuro ensured that it was not
unrelenting, indeed that it was blessed by musical ‘character’.